


Light, Inaccessible

by Rubynye



Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: Dream Sex, Dreamsharing, F/M, M/M, Multi, One of My Favorites, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:15:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris and Winona dream about George.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light, Inaccessible

**Author's Note:**

> Content Advisory: Spoilers for the first twenty minutes of the movie.  
> Acknowledgements: [](http://boosette.livejournal.com/profile)[**boosette**](http://boosette.livejournal.com/), [](http://leftarrow.livejournal.com/profile)[**leftarrow**](http://leftarrow.livejournal.com/), [](http://possibly-thrice.livejournal.com/profile)[**possibly_thrice**](http://possibly-thrice.livejournal.com/) and [](http://lomedet.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://lomedet.livejournal.com/)**lomedet**  
> Title from the hymn "Immortal, Invisible".

Chris flops into his chair, careening between triumph and exhaustion. Having Admiral Archer for an advisor is good for so much more than afternoon beers and playing with beagles; he finally has in hand the mostly-complete records and telemetry from the _Kelvin_'s final hours. Sensor readings, voice and video recordings, survivors' logs from the shuttlecraft, they're all his; they've been expurgated in a few places but the omissions don't seem too glaring nor difficult to extrapolate around.

At least not in the transcripts and diagrams, which are all he's looked over so far. Chris holds the audio memory chip between thumb and forefinger, his console blinking "Insert Data Device" at him, the room lit by its cool blue glow. But it's something past midnight, the Academy campus deserted and unlit in the lull before Fall Session, its darkness lapping at his little circle of light, and if Chris listens to these files...

...if Chris listens he'll hear George's voice one last time, potentially his last words. Chris's arms shake, elbows teetering on his desk; he's shaking all over, he hasn't slept much in the five days since he submitted his meticulously prepared Request and Necessity for these files. George smiles in his memory, that wide Kirk grin as he turns away, and Chris can't make himself insert the chip, can't overlay his last sight of George with the _Kelvin_'s last moments.

He needs to, if he's going to write a credible dissertation, if he's going to understand what destroyed the _Kelvin_, what George died for. He lays his head down in the crook of his arm, idly twirling the chip in his other hand, watching the console's blue light gleam off its smooth white case. So much of what Chris dreads and needs to know is on this chip.

Hand settling to the desk, fingers arched protectively over the chip, Chris yawns and closes his eyes.

-^- * -^- * -^- 

 

Winona wobbles between exhaustion and triumph, dropping onto the living room couch somewhen past midnight. Jim has finally, finally fallen asleep, his little cheek plastered fever-hot to her chest; Sam's had his phases of bad sleeping, but Jim just woke up one day, opened these giant blue eyes, and decided he's never closing them again if he can help it, even if that meant howling into the wee hours every single fucking night.

"You're lucky you're cute, kiddo," she murmurs over his blond-fuzzed head, her voice cracking from lullabies and sleeplessness. Even after her mother goes to bed and Sam and Jim do finally conk out, Winona often putters around the house, reads old novels, or sits on the lawn under the open sky without looking up. When she closes her eyes, half the time she sees fire and jagged metal, and the other half of the time darkness gapes behind her eyelids and the bed feels empty around her in a way their bunk on the _Kelvin_ never did.

All she has now are the creaking, quiet nights, her mother's worried glances, a mildly hyperactive little boy, and a baby with huge blue eyes. Winona rubs her chin lightly over Jim's fuzzy head as she glances at the shadowed shapes of the living room, its dimensions altered by nighttime dimness. A trapezoid of black and light sits mutely on the rectilinear desk, the console she hasn't touched in three weeks. The one thing she never does, in free daytime moments or her sleepless nights, is even try to read down the growing heap of well-meant messages. Every attempt ends with her staring at the stacks of 'New!' tags, cursing softly, and switching the console off again. She's not sure why she set her account back to receiving from 'reject all'; it seemed like a good idea when she landed dirtside and moved back into her mother's house, not that she was competent to have any good ideas right then.

She probably still isn't, after nine months aground and insomniac, without space, without George. Winona grimaces, numbly wry, until her little son snuffles against her chest, flailing a tiny fist in his tiny baby dream. Jim settles again, warm and cartilaginous, and Winona shifts sideways until gravity holds him to her, props one foot up on the couch, tips her head back against the arm rest, and closes her eyes.

 

-^- * -^- * -^- 

 

A single light illuminates the _Kelvin_'s Observation Deck, clear and white as if a star has been pulled in from outside and installed in the ceiling. A soft blanket is spread beneath it, and Winona's knees look very pink against its heathered gray.

She's naked, and she recognizes the square knobby knees beside hers. Her heart flips and implodes and flares like a nova as she looks up, and up, and sees George bare-chested and bedheady and grinning wide, like he always did when he'd just pulled together some caper.

Winona's mouth falls open, the crisp recycled air eddying along her jaw. "This can't be happening," she states with scab-ripping determination. "I already _had_ this dream." It was warm and hazy and made her cry uncontrollably for almost half an hour after she woke up. "You're dead, George." This one's clear and tangible, everything delineated and color-saturated, almost stark under the wall of black windows and the single light. "D. E. A. D." Real enough to fling her cracked mind into scattered fragments if she lets it. "_Dead._"

George half-shrugs, grinning wider. "You think I'm gonna let a little detail like that keep me from kissing my Win?" His arm's firm and strong around her waist, long fingers splayed across her side, and he pulls her up and kisses her, just like he always did, like he was never gone. The familiar mildly chapped softness of his lips, the familiar warmth of his mouth, the familiar way her head nestles into his palm, the familiar twist of heat inside her. She grabs his shoulder, smooth and hard under her hand, and kisses back until she sobs a breath against his lips, but she's not pulling away, not now. George makes a soothing sound deep in his throat, his thumb stroking her jaw with that same round callus gently rasping her skin, and she shakes and clutches tighter and keeps on kissing him.

Someone breathes, soft and shocked, who isn't either of them. Winona stiffens, and George chuckles and pulls out of the kiss, throwing his arm wide. "And here's the cutest cadet on campus," he announces, smacking his hand down on the broadened shoulder of one stunned-looking Cadet Pike. Chris stares at them with arched eyebrows and wide blue eyes under his dark curls, his mouth tensely shut, his long collarbones unexpectedly delicate because he's as naked as they are and that's where Winona stops her roving eyes. It's a dream but there's no reason to be impolite, even if Chris did grow up _hot_, at least in her dream, and she reminds herself she has no way of knowing what he really looks like now after all this time.

Chris opens his mouth and shuts it, blinking so dazedly Winona can't help but smile. "I hope your reaction time's shorter when you're awake," she says, holding out her hand. As he tentatively reaches forward Chris glances from her to George and back again, and Winona feels George nod against the top of her head; Chris smiles, slowly but accelerating till it's wide and bright and so fucking sweet Winona's breath catches, folding his broad hand around hers, tipping forward onto his knees, into their reach.

"Go easy on him, Winnie." George slides his hands down Chris's arm and up her back, so she feels his fingers curve to her flesh as she watches them map Chris's skin. "He didn't expect to wind up here any more than you did."

"Hi," Chris adds, and shuts his shining eyes on a little wince. George chuckles, tugging him close, their hands entangling; Chris looks up in incredulous wonder, and George kisses him, slow and thorough like they have all the time they could ever need. Winona wants to ask where 'here' is, how this could be happening, who 'George' is -- no, she knows him, this is her George she's pressed to, just like every wonderful time they brought someone else to bed with them. This is his heartbeat under her hand, his fingers in her hair, the way his eyelids crinkle when he's concentrating on kissing; she watches Chris's lips part for George, his dark eyelashes trembling on his cheekbones, his neck a sleek arch of muscle, and her heart throbs in her ribcage, broad wingbeats of rising joy inside her.

When George releases him Chris sinks back onto his heels, eyes closed and lips parted like he can't think of a better way to exist than to be kissed, and Winona stares at the strong curve of his throat, his tender mouth and the slow flutter of his lifting eyelids, exactly how George described their goodbye kiss but set in firmer lines. George wanted this before they shipped out, wanted to bring his pet cadet home to her, but Chris was a little too young for Winona then, a little too gangly and undefined. He's still dazed, blue eyes hazy and pupils blown, but his fingers are broad and strong around hers, his shoulder a curve of firm muscle and his chest scattered with little dark curls. Chris turns to her, his smile bordered by the faintest creases between mouth and cheek, and he doesn't look unfinished anymore.

Winona lets her own smile tilt appreciatively, warmth washing through her from both directions when Chris blushes adorably pink and holds her eyes, when George kisses the crown of her head. This doesn't even hurt with longing, it's like George never left, like the last nine months were the nightmare. Which isn't at all true, but she doesn't feel it in this moment, not within the bright warm circle of this dream, not as George says, "Look at Pike, all filled out. What do you think, Win? He grown up enough for you now?"

Chris's chin dips slightly, but he pulls out of the shy bob right away, holding himself steady for inspection. "Yeah, I think so," Winona agrees, tugging him towards her. His mouth is soft and tentative, his hand careful on her forearm, so she shakes her arm free and grabs a handful of dark curls, pulling him in tight, and he shudders so hard she can almost taste it. George hums that same wonderful familiar rumble against her forehead, she's never heard Chris's deep broken moan before, and his tongue flickers in a pattern her subconscious didn't provide. Heat ripples in her belly and blooms under Chris's broad fingers as he clutches her bicep and licks into her mouth, and Winona presses to George and kisses Chris back and gives in to believing for as long as this dream lasts.

 

-^- * -^- * -^- 

 

It's like making love in a kaleidoscope, Chris thinks dizzily, tumbled and squeezed between George's hard muscle and Winona's firm sleekness, patterns of limbs and fingers and lips and tongues spiraling and shifting in impossible arrangements. He hasn't dreamt like this since his first year at the Academy, since he first met and fell for George, but now it's taken to an exponential power because now he has Winona too. He'd rarely dared fantasize about them together, had hardly pictured her naked beyond the generic lovely lines of an athletic woman, but here she is in George's arms and in his, with the exact laughing tilt of her voice, the particular depth of her nails denting his shoulders, the precise downiness of the skin over her ribs. Even the whorls of bumps around her pebbled nipples feel individual and real against his tongue, her voice tilting sharp in his ears when he bites down gently, George's chuckled encouragement buzzing between his shoulderblades.

Chris's head spins, the ship spins, the galaxy spins, and Winona moans into his mouth, her lips wet and soft and trembling under his as her fingers rhythmically dimple his biceps, as he braces her sweat-slick waist and George's eyes sparkle over her shoulder. She rocks into Chris's chest, pushing back into George's thrusts, and Chris can't shape his wonder-slack lips to decent kisses, gasping and achingly hard as George grins openmouthed against the tender skin covering Winona's shoulderblade, laughing soundlessly at Chris's stunned face reflected in his twinkling eyes. Winona's eyelashes flick Chris's skin, painting him with her tears as she sobs sweet-sounding curses and comes shaking against him, her quivers pulverizing him beneath his skin, and when she sags into him, her breasts rounded and sliding against his chest, his bones feel like powder but he still tries to hold her up.

George laughs out loud now, a rolling breathless peal as he pushes Winona against Chris, as he tugs out Chris's knee with long strong fingers, and Chris is on his back without feeling the landing, Winona tensing slickly around him, her breath a hot liquid tide over his throat. He must've cried out somehow because his throat burns, his hips banded by her squeezing thighs as she bites his chin, sparking-bright. Winona growls and George laughs and Chris moans, tipping his head back, offering his throat as she writhes on him and bites harder, fire flooding his senses.

He gasps around George's stroking tongue, against George's lips shaping from a smile to a kiss, as Winona bucks atop him, fucking him for all he's worth; she growls over his throat, damnation or exhortation in words he doesn't know, as George's laugh buzzes his mouth and his nerves light up like power conduits and he comes so hard it throbs outward from his dick to lock up his muscles, burn under his scalp, crimp his fingers and toes, bang his pulse against his skin all over his body.

George lifts Winona, his knee pressing Chris's side, one solid point of reference as Chris dissolves beneath her and listens to their soft sliding kiss. Winona shifts, her knees smaller against Chris's hip as she lies down beside him, as George leans over him and into him and this is what he wanted all those years ago, Winona's lips soft on his closed eyelid and then the other as George sighs into his neck and moves inside him. Everything's warm and dark, Winona's damp hair blanketing his face as she kisses him, as George groans and pushes over and over, a subsurface pulse rising through the rippling sea of pleasure.

Chris floats under George's weight and can't open his eyes until he suddenly does, and what he sees is Winona's profile, her soft wistful smile and her nose pointed like a compass as she watches George's face hanging over his, eyes closed, all that laughter tightening into ecstacy. Suddenly Chris feels the white light overhead spear cold through his heart, and blood-tinged blackness drowns out his sight.

Or maybe it's just his eyelids. George slumps shuddering onto and beside him, and Winona's hand rests in George's hair, her wrist above Chris's mouth. He blinks his eyes open as he kisses her there, smooth skin and her gentle pulse, and she's smiling at him, her eyes blue as the sky over the desert where he was raised. She kisses his cheek and settles her head beside his, George puffs a low sated laugh over his temple, and Chris just lies there snug between them, lax and unstrung and absolutely melted.

Soon enough, George nudges Chris's thigh with his knee, saying, "All right, Pike, shift over." Chris swallows and nods and watches George clamber over, long strong lines sheened with exertion, flop onto his back and roll Winona towards himself. She cocks an eyebrow but wriggles up over George's shoulder, and when he grins at her like a floodlight she lets out a sharp little "hah" of a laugh, grinning helplessly in return. George squirms the other arm under Chris's back, and his arms and legs feel like five hundred kilos each but he shifts himself into George's hold and basks in the penumbra of their smiles as they smile at each other.

Then they both turn those smiles on him, and Chris's cheeks burn like a happy sunburn, it's all he can do to keep his chin up and not hide his face against George's side. "Hey," George says, as Winona reaches across and pets Chris's disheveled curls, her hand warm and firm. Chris's mouth sticks shut, but he manages to nod.

Winona looks up at George, her fingers still moving through Chris's hair. "One more time," she says to him, and his smile softens. "I thought..." Her smile widens to brilliance, and Chris's heart swells with it.

But then it fades, she looks down, her petting hand slowing to a stop, and he remembers that this is a dream, because it's turning cruel. Neither his dissertation nor anything else can bring George back, not to Winona, not for anyone. If his subconscious is going to rub that in by depicting her unhappy, he'd almost rather wake up.

Just as Chris thinks this George squeezes them both, and he watches Winona's spine sway under George's arm as he feels his own flex in the same curve. "Look to the dawn," George tells her gently, quoting something half-remembered, wrapping his arm across her back and his hand around her shoulder, and when her mouth crumples as she looks up with too-bright eyes, Chris feels like an interloper inside his own head and curses his literalistic brain.

Since it _is_ a dream, since he can, Chris folds his hand around Winona's and she squeezes it, her smile pursed but real as George kisses her forehead, smoothing and unfurling as she closes her eyes. George squeezes Chris again, tight pressure across his back as he murmurs to her, "You're all going to make it, Winnie. No matter what," then turns to Chris with the same soft smile and says, "When you have to take that walk you will, trust me. Unflinchingly, chin up."

Chris swallows hard and nods, feeling incongruously relieved though he doesn't know what question George just answered for him, but Winona shakes her head until her blonde hair tumbles. "Wait, what the hell?" She pokes George over his heart, and his head tips back, teeth gleaming as he laughs. "I _hate_ prophecy, it's nothing but trouble out there and superstition down here. You know--"

Still laughing, George kisses Winona, sliding his hand up into her hair. "I know, I know," he says with a broad grin. "Always master your fate, Captain Kirk." She huffs as if to say 'I don't buy your bullshit,' but her cheek creases, her mouth tilting upwards. "It's just that time's a dimension, not a line. It's easier to see that when you're dead."

Winona shuts her eyes then, and when she tugs her hand away Chris lets go, letting his drop to George's ribs. "I'm sorry, for before," she murmurs, her fingertips on George's cheekbone.

George just shrugs, still smiling as brightly as ever. "Hey, it's not like it's not true." Winona's hand fists tightly over the hinge of his jaw, and Chris wants to reach up and smooth it out over the contours of George's face, to soothe her somehow. It would make his dream better, and maybe this is somehow really her dream he's merely inhabiting, in which case she more than deserves to enjoy it.

George prods Chris's shoulder as if nudging him; slightly tweaked, Chris looks up, almost about to ask, and George gives him that knowing smile and a big broad wink. Chris only manages a boggled stare, but Winona relaxes, stroking George's cheek, glancing at Chris and reaching for his hand again. "Hang onto me, I don't want to wake up from this."

"Neither do I," Chris admits, realizing how heavy his head feels. It's not fair, getting sleepy in a dream, even with George's chest warm under his cheek.

"I don't want either of you to go, but the planet's still turning towards morning." George kisses Chris's forehead as he says this, then Winona's.

Chris sighs, but she groans. "George, you're driving me crazy."

"No, I'm not," George retorts cheerfully. "He will, though, but he'll make you proud in the end. You'll see."

Chris tries to lift his head, and George pats it back down. "George, shut up," Winona says, and Chris gives her warm, fine fingers a little squeeze; she squeezes back, growling softly. George answers with a muffled chuckle, and Chris listens again to the wet soft sound of their kisses as he relaxes, his head under George's chin, his hand tangled into Winona's hand, his eyes drifting shut.

 

-^- * -^- * -^- 

 

Chris jolts awake like a crash landing. It's pitch dark until his flailing jerk wakes his computer from sleep mode; his cheek is hot and flattened against the hard desk, his ass numb instead of pleasantly sore, and all the spots where the hickeys should be echo with a kind of empty negative tingle. The only soreness is the insistent achy throb in his balls, but at least he didn't actually come in his pants.

That was a hell of a dream. Chris can still feel a lingering imprint of George's arm across his back, Winona's fingers folded into his rather than the smooth plastic case of the datachip under his hand. He pushes the chip aside and flattens his palms on his desk, heaving himself up from the chair, wincing at his stiffly creaking joints, still a bit dazed and agonizingly horny.

"Ugh," he groans aloud, stretching his arms behind his head. The chrono says 0457. He needs a shower, a shave, some coffee and to get back to work on his outline until the mess opens, but he stops and stands staring at the chill-bright console screen, thinking once again of sending Winona another message.

What the hell would he say? 'Had a wet dream about you and George. You both looked good and tasted better. Hope you're doing well.' He snorts and shakes his head, thinking, 'Pike, don't even try it.' If Winona wanted anything from Chris, needed anything he could give, she'd let him know. Hell, right now the best he can hope for is that she'll forgive him for turning the _Kelvin_ disaster into his dissertation.

Which means his best chance is to make it good.

But first, he really needs to jerk off, preferably in the shower. Chris shoves away from his desk and staggers stiff-legged towards his bathroom.

 

-^- * -^- * -^- 

 

The further up she floats the heavier she gets, until Winona surfaces from sleep draped over the couch with Jim a damp snuggly weight atop her lungs. Half-stifled, she drags in a huge gasping whoop of air, but Jim doesn't even stir. Nothing does, it's still dark inside and out, all of Iowa still asleep.

Everyone's asleep except her, and her dream is over and gone. Chris Pike's hand in hers over George's chest, her legs tangled with George's and his lips brushing hers, that's all vanished, fading behind her eyes, and for one bleak moment all she feels is a howling emptiness. She curves her hands protectively over Jim to shield him from her own grief, tenses to cry silently into his fuzzy hair.

But the storm of tears doesn't come. She still feels little echoes of warmth, though it was just a dream. She still feels George's smile.

Slowly, carefully, Winona shifts herself off the couch and onto her feet, and carries Jim back upstairs to his crib. He snuffles when she lays him down, but stays asleep; she checks on Sam too and pulls the kicked-off blanket back over him.

Then she finds herself halfway down the stairs, facing into the living room. She can see the console from here, and she knows there are notes from Chris Pike amidst the pile in her inbox.

What exactly could she possibly write back? 'Thanks for the condolences. Am not dead, credit to my mother and to George. Got a post-graduation posting yet? Ever wanted to join us for a threesome? I dreamt one the other day, it was good. Too bad we never did, huh?'

Winona shakes her head and steps with noiseless care down the rest of the stairs. She pads past the living room and out the front door into the crisp fall breeze, wrapping her bare arms around herself as her nightgown ripples, and for the first time since she landed on Earth she looks up into the blue-dark, star-scattered night sky.


End file.
